ELA 1102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Spanish Requirement Of 1513

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Latin American Studies
• Course: ELA 1102
• Professor: Jorge Carlos Guerrero

Document Summary

Requirement: pronouncement to be read by spanish conquerors. The requerimiento [requirement] was written in 1510 by the council of castile to be read aloud as an ultimatum to conquered indians in the americas. It asserted the religious authority of the roman catholic pope over the entire earth, and the political authority of spain over the americas (except brazil) from the 1493 papal bull that divided the western hemisphere between spain and portugal. It demanded that the conquered peoples accept spanish rule and christian preaching or risk subjugation, enslavement, and death. Often the requerimiento was read in latin to the indians with no interpreters present, or even delivered from shipboard to an empty beach, revealing its prime purpose as self-justification for the spanish invaders. On the part of the king, don fernando, and of do a juana, his daughter, queen of.